Editorial opinion – Page 26
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OpinionOPINION: Why Pilatus, Antonov gambles have different stakes
First flights appear to be like London buses: you wait ages for one and then two come along at once.
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Opinion
OPINION: Airbus hit hard by A400M tragedy
Disaster struck the A400M programme on 9 May, when an aircraft due to be delivered to the Turkish air force in June crashed shortly after starting its first flight from Airbus’s final assembly site in Seville. Four of the six flight-test personnel on board the military transport tragically lost their ...
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OpinionOPINION: No more near misses
The FAA should be commended for allowing further cautious airspace use by unmanned air vehicles, but its previous inaction put too many lives at risk
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Opinion
OPINION: Why the US military must do more with less
Another 2,000 aircraft are projected to exit the US military’s inventory over the next decade. For the fleets of many countries, this would be an existential crisis. But this is the American fleet, so it is only a 15% cut.
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OpinionOPINION: Can we all learn to love Ryanair?
Is Michael O’Leary a sinner come to repentance? For years, Ryanair seemed to delight in being vile to customers. Cheap fares, an extensive network, modern (if frill-free) aircraft and punctual service kept punters rolling in. But few would have professed any kind of warm feelings to Europe’s biggest short-haul airline.
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Opinion
OPINION: In robot wars, manned and unmanned systems must merge
The US Navy claimed an aviation first after an unmanned demonstrator was refuelled in flight, but budget pressures will see it trail the army in using such equipment operationally
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Opinion
OPINION: Rafale buy gives India a fighting chance
Seasoned watchers of India’s slow-moving defence procurement system noted the three-year anniversary earlier this year of its selection of the Dassault Rafale, at a time when a contract signature seemed to be barely a blip on the radar screen.
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Opinion
OPINION: Why Norway is challenging pilot employment rules
The way in which international airlines are conducting business in a globalised marketplace is, in some cases, taking them down roads nobody could have foreseen in the days when markets were more local and businesses straitjacketed by bilateral treaties.
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OpinionOPINION: Bombardier is still in the game - just
With more bad news for Bombardier from one of its biggest CSeries customers, its new boss must install a team who can deliver the aircraft hitch free and compete much harder for sales
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Opinion
OPINION: Why US Army aviation plans are in a spin
Helicopter manufacturers, here is your challenge: build a machine that can pick up a critically wounded soldier at the top of a 6,000ft mountain on a hot day in July, dash at 220kt (407km/h) or faster to a medical facility hundreds of kilometres away, then land the vehicle easily in ...
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OpinionOPINION: Time to stop Germanwings information anarchy
Intense media interest in an accident like the Germanwings crash in the French Alps is understandable – but the way the media and public has been fed with information directly from a grandstanding French judicial prosecutor is not.
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OpinionOPINION: Time to reverse declining private pilot numbers
It is a curious anomaly. At a time when more people than ever are flying as airline passengers, the number flying as private pilots is plummeting. UK Civil Aviation Authority figures show that flying activity at schools and aerodromes has fallen 40% since 2005. The pattern in other mature markets ...
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OpinionOPINION: Aviation must address risk within the cockpit
The Germanwings Airbus A320 loss, it seems, was another deliberate act by a pilot. That statement is not intended to imply that this is becoming commonplace – because that is far from true – but the very fact that there have been several deliberate acts of destruction by pilots, even ...
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OpinionOPINION: Has Finmeccanica ditched its 'troubled' tag?
Has Finmeccanica turned the corner? At the risk of tempting fate, all the indicators say it’s time to drop the modifier “troubled” when referring to Italy’s aerospace champion and start talking about profits and growth – and the bold moves they might enable.
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OpinionOPINION: Why US protectionism is bad for everyone
The home of the free market has always had an ambivalent attitude to foreign competition, from Japanese cars threatening Motor City in the 1970s to cheap imports squeezing farmers. The USA may be a consumer paradise, where ordering a pizza requires a baffling array of choices – but the customer ...
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OpinionOPINION: Are commercial aviation leaders right to feel optimistic?
Not until the very last panel of the ISTAT conference did someone in the audience ask the one question that had been hovering over the event for two days.
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OpinionOPINION: Can Solar Impulse 2 really inspire change?
In this age of intercontinental travel, the setting of aviation records may seem like a throwback to a bygone era. But there remain boundaries to push, and Solar Impulse’s bid to set new endurance standards for solar powered, no-fuel flying is impressive and important.
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OpinionOPINION: Can gadget-free H160 be a revolutionary success?
As the curtain dropped behind Airbus Helicopters’ beaming chief executive Guillaume Faury at the Heli-Expo show in Orlando, Florida, it revealed... well, what appears to be just another helicopter.
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OpinionOPINION: Why search for MH370 could come to an end
A year after it disappeared, not a trace of the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 has been found. Tantalising but vestigial satellite links with the aircraft have enabled Australian Transport Safety Bureau-led searchers to reach a consensus on where it is worth looking for the Boeing 777’s remains – but ...
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Opinion
OPINION: UK SAR transition leaves no room for error
Privatising public services is not a new concept, but selling off a nation’s coastal and inland helicopter search and rescue operation is a bold move.